It is widely known to implant medical implants, which include natural biological implants such as transplanted organs or parts thereof as well as artificial prostheses, into the bodies of recipient patients. The medical implants used in this context can therefore consist of living tissue that has been harvested from living or recently deceased bodies, such as animal bodies, or of non-living, biologically inert materials. However, a medical implant that does not originate from the tissues or cells of the respective recipient patient himself or from his identical twin, will often be recognized by the recipient organism as a foreign body and will therefore be attacked and combatted by so-called immunocompetent or immunoactive cells of the immune system of the recipient patient.
In order to prevent such an immune reaction in a patient who is to receive a medical implant, it is known in the art to cover the surfaces of the implant that would otherwise be recognized as a foreign body, with a coating layer of cells taken from the patient's own body or cells of an identical character, before the implant is implanted into the patient's body. Due to the surface coating of cells that are recognized as autologous (or at least not recognized as foreign) by the recipient patient's immune system, the coated implant will not be attacked by the immune system of the patient. In other words, the coating of cells applied onto the surface of the medical implant masks the foreign characteristics of the implant material.
In the conventional coating process, the coating cells are typically applied in the manner of a cell suspension onto the implant, whether it be a natural organ, a part of an organ, or an artificial prosthesis, before the operation by which this implant is to be implanted into the recipient patient. In this context, it is the goal to ensure that as many living cells as possible are deposited out of the cell suspension onto the surface to be coated, and that these living cells remain adherently fixed on the intended surface and then grow securely in place on this surface.
The PCT International Patent Publication WO 93/01843 discloses a method of the type generally described above, which serves to coat the surfaces of cylindrical medical implants. In this known method, the tubular implants that are to be coated are inserted into a horizontally arranged cylindrical chamber, which is filled with the respective cell suspension. The chamber is then rotated about its lengthwise axis, either in a continuous rotation or in a step-wise partial rotation manner. The partial stepwise rotation involves rotating the chamber about its lengthwise axis through a prescribed rotational angle, and then holding the chamber fixed for a predetermined period of time in the particular angular position that was reached by the partial rotation, and thereafter rotating the chamber through another rotational angle and again holding the chamber fixed in the new angular position for a predetermined period of time.